Roland Robards
Roland Robards, or Rotgut Redhelm, is an Unseelie Redcap Wilder and founder of the Urban Renewal League. Overview Roland is a product of urban Philadelphia's economic and social woes. He grew up on the streets, leaning his own form of freedom in the city known as the birthplace of liberty. Left on his own, one of the innumerable latchkey kids whose parents worked too many hours for too little money, he gravitated toward the inevitable street gang as a means of survival and as a way to make a name for himself. Inherently a tough, gutsy little kid, Roland, who renamed himself Rotgut after winning a dare by eating a rat carcass, grew up into a wiry, top-heavy teenager with bulging neck muscles and powerful shoulders that served him well in daily brawls. Plus his spring-wound legs could carry him rapidly away or toward a fight. In a normal world, he would have ended up as a bullet sheath. Instead a particularly bloody gang fight sparked his Chrysalis. The battle passed in a furious rage of mindless, ravenous carnage. He emerged as the sole survivor of the fight with numerous bleeding wounds and a full stomach. He also realized that he belonged to the carnivorous race known as redcaps. The explosive outpouring of Glamour attracted the attention of a small oathcircle of local sidhe; young Unseelie wilders from a number of houses who had banded together in defiance of their elders. Seeing the redcap fledge as a great opportunity to harness a killing machine in his service, the group's leader, a hard-faced Eiluned lordling named Gervarian, pronounced a geas upon the young 'cap, forcing him to submit his will to the whims of his new masters. For five months, Roland embarked on a frenzy of murderous assault at the behest of Gervarian and his oathmates. Had he chosen his own victims, he might have gloried in the terror he caused. Instead, he grew to dread each day's spectacle as the Eiluned sidhe systematically worked his way through the commoner population. Although his actions and will no longer belonged to him, Roland's thoughts remained his own and the daily grew more murderous. He finally got his chance when he was ordered to cause the prolonged death of a cantankerous old nocker who had once slighted one of Gervarian's oathmates. Roland dutifully cornered the grump in his workshop freehold. In exchange for a relatively painless (though still prolonged) death, the nocker agreed to help Roland find a way out of his predicament. Following orders, Roland delivered the nocker's mutilated body to his sidhe tormentors. Stepping back from the corpse to allow the sidhe a clear view of his handiwork, the redcap pulled a small device, crafted by the nocker as a "going away present" for those who had ordered his death, from his pocket and depressed the remote detonator. The victim informed Roland just before he died, "pushing the button doesn't violate the wording of your geas. You won't be killing them; I will." Free at last in a city known for its part in the American Revolution, Roland set about exacting even more vengeance on the nobility. He moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh where he founded the Urban Renewal League, a society dedicated to violent revolution. He acquired a small arsenal of heavy weapons, stole combat attire from the local Army-Navy store and geared up for a battle he felt was coming. His instincts were good. When the collapse of the Parliament of Dreams set the stage for open war between nobles and commoners, Roland, now only known by his fae moniker of Rotgut Redhelm, saw the perfect opportunity to move the Urban Renewal League into the front ranks of the war. Refusing to remain in one place long enough to attract the attention of the authorities, he and his army rely on surprise raids and lightning strikes to get across their message of terror. Image Rotgut decks himself out in a bizarre mix of medieval armor worn atop basic army gear, including kevlar vest and military camo. Continuing his century-spanning fashion statement, he carries both a wicked-looking barbed sword and a nocker-crafted weapon reminiscent of an M-16. In his mittens, this battle-hardened redcap wears an expression of barely suppressed rage. Stocky in build, with a muscular body and a powerful stride, Rotgut wears a necklace of finger bones taken from those he's defeated. Personal Roland's early experience at the hands of the "noble" sidhe has taught him a very valuable lesson: Show no mercy to those who have the power to force you to your knees; strike terror into the hearts of the nobility wherever and whenever possible; take no prisoners except to subject them to a period of prolonged and intense agony culminating in an excruciating death. Even the "innocent" childlings aren't. They too will grow up one day unless he does something about it. He saves his loyalty and affection for the members of the League, who look up to him for leadership. He won't do anything to let them down. References # CTD. War in Concordia: The Shattered Dream, pp. 91-92. Category:Unseelie (CTD) Category:Wilders (CTD) Category:Redcaps (CTD)